Posted
by
msmash
on Friday February 02, 2018 @02:08PM
from the breaking-news dept.

The controversial four-page memo created by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee alleging abuse of surveillance authority by the Justice Department and FBI has been released Friday after being declassified by the president. The memo is unredacted. (Alternative link for the memo.)The Washington Post: The four-page, newly declassified memo written by the Republican staffers for the House Intelligence Committee said the findings "raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain (Justice Department) and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) calling it "a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process."

The memo accuses former officials who approved the surveillance applications -- a group that includes former FBI Director James B. Comey, his former deputy Andrew McCabe, former deputy attorney general Sally Yates and current Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein -- of signing off on court surveillance requests that omitted key facts about the political motivations of the person supplying some of the information, Christopher Steele, a former intelligence officer in Britain. The memo says Steele "was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations -- an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI." The FBI Agents Association on Friday said that agents "have not, and will not, allow partisan politics to distract us from our solemn commitment to our mission." The full statement: The men and women of the FBI put their lives on the line every day in the fight against terrorists and criminals because of their dedication to our country and the Constitution. The American people should know that they continue to be well-served by the world's preeminent law enforcement agency. FBI Special Agents have not, and will not, allow partisan politics to distract us from our solemn commitment to our mission.

This is a great day for the FISA court system, which has been viciously attacked for decades right here on Slashdot.

Now that there's pretty solid evidence that the DNC basically used the DOJ to lie to the FISA courts as part of its campaign... SUDDENLY FISA IS OK! That's because the abuses were against Trump. Just remember, if it had been against a terrorist or an actual foreign spy, that would have been unconstitutional.

But against Trump? Fuck the constitution the ends always justify the means.

Remember, principles should be sacrificed as long as the end result is reinforcing the narrative that OMG TRUMP RUSSIA is true no matter what.

You got ALL that from a 4-page memo containing information cherry-picked from 400 pages of information. You, sir, are really good at reading between the lines! Good thing this wasn't written by a high-level partisan toady, who worked for the Trump campaign, complaining about alleged partisan politics involving people investigating potentially illegal activities by his former boss and his campaign people (of which, again, he was one).

Remember, principles should be sacrificed as long as the end result is reinforcing the narrative that OMG TRUMP RUSSIA is true no matter what.

Or sacrificing principles, with one Mulligan after another, so you can still support someone no matter what he, and the people around him, has done - or how much they lie (every single day) about, seriously, everything. Keep a firm hold onto *your* "ends justify the means" beliefs. Your Political God will be proud of you, but the other One not so much.

Not saying the DNC doesn't have their own problems, but anything involving Nunes at this point should be very suspect.

Apparently the argument boils down to the fact that the accusations in the Steele dossier were cited as a reason to surveil Page, therefore he shouldn't have been surveilled. But it doesn't say what other reasons were cited. One of them could be "Was spotted taking a stack of cash with the note 'FOR ALL THE COLLUSION' on it from head of the KGB" for all we know.

Apparently the argument boils down to the fact that the accusations in the Steele dossier were cited as a reason to surveil Page, therefore he shouldn't have been surveilled. But it doesn't say what other reasons were cited. One of them could be "Was spotted taking a stack of cash with the note 'FOR ALL THE COLLUSION' on it from head of the KGB" for all we know.

Wrong.

You seem to have missed the key point that the FBI and DoJ deliberately left out the political origins and the fact the the Steele dossier was uncorroborated from the FISA court.

FOUR TIMES.

And the guy at the center of it all was Andy McCabe, whose wife got $1 million from Hillary! while he was in charge of investigating her email server.

The same Andy McCabe who was unceremoniously dumped out of the FBI the day after the FBI director saw the memo...

How relevant or important is that? If they cited as a reason that "Hillary Clinton herself has stated that she thinks this man is a poopyface, and she paid me $100 to write this" that would also not mean that there could not be other, good reasons for surveilling Page listed right alongside it.

Very. They lied to the court to get the warrants, they broke multiple laws by doing so. They cast the justice system into disrepute, this is big, very big. The warrant was basically granted under false pretenses, that nulls *everything* the judge can revoke the warrant(s) and that all the evidence in that chain. That means anything tied to those fisa warrants at any level all gone. On top of that the people who filed for the warrants can be criminally charged.

This is why you don't lie when you file for a warrant. It's why you fully state the sources. You don't smudge, you don't nudge, you don't bullshit. Democrats and progressives wanted a "true" russian investigation, and these people just fucked it all up for you - forever.

That's exactly how law works in the US, Canada and most western countries. There's a thing called "chain of evidence" it deals with the initial source, through the people who carry it, to where it ends up in court and who signs for everything. Warrants filed under false pretenses and used to gain evidence are void.

If you want to see this in action read Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States. It's a very well known case where the US government seized tax records, then tried to present it as evidence before the court. There is also something called "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" in US law it boils down to this; and this is a very slim definition. There is a lot of case law on this.

n. in criminal law [law.com], the doctrine that evidence discovered due to information found through illegal search or other unconstitutional means (such as a forced confession) may not be introduced by a prosecutor. The theory is that the tree (original illegal evidence) is poisoned and thus taints what grows from it. For example, as part of a coerced admission made without giving a prime suspect the so-called "Miranda warnings" (statement of rights, including the right to remain silent and what he/she says will be used against them), the suspect tells the police the location of stolen property. Since the admission cannot be introduced as evidence in trial, neither can the stolen property.

McCabe said they couldn't go to the FISA court without Steele's information (in the memo during his Congressional testimony)They also cites news sources (Yahoo news) writing about Steele's information, so their second source was a news report about their first source. really?

They then renewed the FISA warrant, without additional information (illegal), even after they knew Steele was an unreliable source and was fired for it.It was renewed AFTER they knew the information was all false.They LIED to wiretap T

I don't think that's the point. Your analysis requires nuance, and the point of the memo is to rally GOP partisans and give the talking heads on Fox News talking points that sound official. Most things that require nuance are beyond the comprehension of most voters (as the various AC posts that immediately flooded this story demonstrate), and this allows the administration to pretend to be the victim.

Trump and his supporters want to reframe the argument. If the argument is "did Trump collude with Russian to undermine American democracy?" he's in a losing situation. If the argument is, "was Trump being unfairly investigated by intelligence agencies?" then he has a chance to discredit any questions about his campaign. By selectively declassifying information, Nunes and Trump can lie by omission, which is enough to convince those who are stupid and those who don't care if Trump colluded with the Russians so long as he enacts their desired policies.

That argument breaks down entirely given the fact that the first 2 or 3 FISA warrents on Carter Page, were initiated several months before the Steele dossier was even prepared. The FISA warrent in question was the 3rd or 4th one approved by the FISA Court. The memo also leaves out numerous accounts tha tthe Steele dossier was intially commissioned by one of the GOP presidential campaigns prior to the Clinton campaign paying to get their hands on it.

Of course not. This is a 4-page (opinion) memo containing information cherry-picked from 400 pages if information, by a Congressman who use to work for the Trump campaign. Furthermore, the original source information is classified, so we cannot see it to gain any context

Ah but we do have context! We have the context of the entire opposition party protesting the release of this memo, an opposition party that for the first 6-8 months of Trump's term had exactly no qualms about leaking information. If this memo was just an opinion with cherry-picked examples they would not have fought so hard to keep it from release. The fact they did fight so hard means they know it will make it harder to keep the really damning facts under wraps now, or that they will ultimately have to

This release was entirely for the purpose of ANNOUNCING a big thing, TEASING a big thing, then DEBATING it as a black box, then acting as if the release was some big lesson of punishment against those that disagree with the administration.

The actual details don't really matter, so much as they constitute an illusion that they have a big argument, and that for their captive audience on their news sources, they are winning on their terms.

And yes, this is very much how despotic regimes have operated for centuries.

I'm always still more than a little confused why anyone actually plays any of the particular roles in these scenarios though - does Devin Nunes think he's actually serving his own self interest in ANY way, given how basically every other person that has served Trump in this way has ended up over time?

Wow. Actually for people like myself who have great concern for the surveillance state that has been erected post 9-11 this is exactly what we feared. The secret surveillance state abused and being used as a political weapon in the name of national security all without any oversight by the people of the country.
You seem to think that this whole thing is partisan which means you buy into the propaganda. That isn't surprising. The media has been spinning this as a partisan attack for some time.
The reality is it speaks to how easy it is to abuse the great monstrous civil rights crushing system which people like Rand Paul and Ron Wyden have been fighting to prevent. Hopefully they seize on this moment to deliver a large blow against it although the President just signed worse legislation weeks ago.

The memo shows no evidence that the FISA system is being used as a political weapon. Carter Page was a person of interest to the FBI in 2013. Also, FISA warrants involve judges... so a judge looked at the *ENTIRE* application and approved it. There is currently no evidence to second guess the judges decision. And, my personal opinion, *LISTEN* to Carter Page: he has wannabe criminal written all over him.

I can see why the FBI and Democrat's did not want the memo released. But some of this just confirms what some already were saying. Yes, its very much embarrassing to see what lengths were taken to try and affect the election. But more important is how any evidence Muller has obtained in his investigation that was directly or indirectly obtained through this FISA warrant is now defunct. The warrant was obtained with improper and false information already proven. Talk about collusion, now this stuff is collusion in the biggest way.

Everything that Muller has that came from these FISA warrants is now "fruit of the forbidden tree". That is everything that descends, any secondary, tertiary information that came from a source identified. Their problem is that there would be no collusion investigation without the Steele dossier. They cannot argue that they would have discovered the information anyway because there would have been no investigation.

No wonder the Democrats didn't want this released. It just destroyed their narrative.

Fucking idiot didn't read your own link dipshit.
"Example: Officer Furlong searches a residence for evidence of illegal bookmaking pursuant to a search warrant. The officer obtained the warrant by submitting an affidavit containing statements the officer knew to be false. The search is not valid because the police did not act in good faith. Officer Furlong used a false affidavit to obtain the warrant. Whatever the search turns up would not be admissible in evidence."

You're talking like every word in there is the God's honest truth. The guy who wrote it is a full-fledged climate-change denying [nytimes.com] Trump supporter. He could easily have written the same nonsense for Breitbart and released it instantly. However, as head of a House committee he was instead able write his partisan screed under its aegis, get it approved on party line votes, then turn around and play like his own committees' rules are some kind of giant conspiracy of silence.

The POTUS can declassify anything he wants with an executive order (or occasionally implicitly by just releasing it himself). The FBI is required to follow established procedures, none of which are designed for this kind of situation, and Congress can only do it by passing a law (either with a POTUS signature, or over his veto).

I'd suggest putting an Ad on TV during either Fox and Friends, or Shark Week.

The FBI, I believe, has called it misleading. The FBI is not required to construct a counter-narrative involving an ongoing investigation.

1. There's nothing "ongoing" about that warrant or the circumstances surrounding how it was obtained. That warrant, like all FISA warrants, had a 90-day lifespan.2. "Did not" is not an effective defense past preschool.

If they had probable cause to surveil Carter Page, then they wouldn't have included the dossier in the FISA application. The dossier is absolutely the reason that the FISA warrant was issued. Without the dossier, the warrant would not have been granted. By the way, those aren't my words.....that's what Rod Rosenstein told Congress. [house.gov]

Nope. The FBI can put whatever is convenient in the FISA application, sufficient to met the legal standard in the eyes of the judge. If they do not like the answer from the FISA court, they will then cough up more information and try again. They did not have to.

If they did not have Steele's dossier, maybe they would have been done. Or maybe they would have used other sources. I do not know. You do not know either. Pretending to know something you do not is just silliness, at best.

Carter Page is the lynch pin that will sink Trump and his children and son in law. This memo is a looky loo to turn real criminal infractions by these people into a partisan football where facts do not matter. The Steele Dossier was merely corroborating information. The FISA application is classified so no one can dispute this memo without leaking classified information, means and methods. Trump is the true heir to P.T Barnum. Mueller's team hasn't said anything. What are they afraid of? Criminals know the crimes they committed.

Republicans are alleging that FISA was abused. If that's true, regardless the reasons or motivations, it only re-affirms what a lot of us were thinking would happen when the warrantless wiretapping program and "unmasking" was made public back in 2005.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you build a giant surveillance machine with limited checks and balances and without regard for the constitution, things like what the memo alleges are eventually going to occur. It's human nature. What's more disturbing than the memo is that BOTH Democrat and Republican lawmakers allowed this sort of surveillance to proceed. There is no place for a FISA (Secret Courts) in a free society.

The Republican majorities in the House and Senate just renewed the FISA laws back in December, spearheaded by an impassioned speech demanding the Justice Department be allowed to do whatever it felt necessary. And impassioned speech by... Devin Nunes. Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican!

With a lot of Democratic votes, IIRC. I'm a registered Democrat myself, but I don't think you can fix the FISA issue with simple party-line politics. This is a PRIMARY problem, more than a general election problem. Whichever party you register with, make sure to support primary candidates who care about this issue. If they don't care, then the path of least resistance is always going to be to avoid being flanked in the next election by someone "tough on terrorisim".

... by the corruption among top FBI officials — an important omission in your comment.

Not to defend FISA, but corruption of law-enforcement officers is a problem civilization faced for as long as law-enforcement existed. By itself, what happened may be an argument for improving the checks-and-balances mechanisms of FISA, but not for its outright abolition.

A FISA request is usually in the order of 40 pages or so. This memo was only four pages. I have to wonder what justifications for what was done were intentionally left out of the shot four page summary? Indeed, Rep Nunes has the reputation, even within his own party, of being a bumbling Inspector Clouseau type of investigator. So I also have to wonder just how good this memo really is. Then there is also the fact that Rep Nunes won't answer the question of whether or not the White House helped him create the memo.

.
At this point, if there is any politicization to be talked about, it is with regard to the creation and release of the memo.

Full text (copy/paste from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/read-the-full-text-of-the-nunes-memo/552191/):

January 18, 2018

To: HPSCI Majority Members

From: HPSCI Majority Staff

Subject: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Purpose

This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee&rsquo;s ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Our findings, which are detailed below, 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.

Investigation Update

On October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order (not under Title VII) authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. Page is a U.S. citizen who served as a volunteer advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Consistent with requirements under FISA, the application had to be first certified by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI. It then required the approval of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.

The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC. As required by statute (50 U.S.C. &#167;,1805(d)(l)), a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Then-DAG Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.

Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA submissions (including renewals) before the FISC are classified. As such, the public&rsquo;s confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court&rsquo;s ability to hold the government to the highest standard&mdash;particularly as it relates to surveillance of American citizens. However, the FISC&rsquo;s rigor in protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government&rsquo;s production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government. In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts. However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.

1) The &ldquo;dossier&rdquo; compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump&rsquo;s ties to Russia.

a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele&rsquo;s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.

b) The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person,

The Nunes memo revolves around the assertion that Carter Page's collusion with Russia's spy agency should not have been caught by a FISA warrant.

By the time Carter Page was caught committing treason for the Trump campaign, he had already been caught communicating with and offering help to Russian spies in a completely separate spy ring.

In other words, the Trump / Russia collusion is the second time Carter Page has been investigated in connection to Russian spies he was working for.

Interestingly the Russian spies in the first investigation (1 did prison time, 2 fled to Moscow) thought Carter Page was an idiot who craved money. Watch one of his bumbling television appearances where he incriminates himself multiple times while trying to pretend nothing happened. Really quite amazing spectacle, and you have to conclude the Russians are right about this guy... [youtube.com]

And do that without relying on any info from anonymous sources we can't verify which was probably leaked by these guys to "corroborate" their own testimony. You just accused someone of treason, but you failed to provide even one shred of proof. Also, if they're willing to lie to us to get spying powers, why should we believe they won't lie to us about what they've found in order to keep themselves out of prison for unlawful spying?

hey just need to show that they have some reason to suspect that the surveillance might show evidence of a crime

No! they need to show they have probable cause to think a crime was committed and the warrant execution would lead to evidence of that crime. Warrants have to be specific too! You don't get to say "he looks shady I want to search his house." It has to be more like "I have a corpse we extracted a 9mm round from so we suspect its a murder, I want bobs house for a recently fired 9mm hand gun because Sally saw him waving one around threatening Jim (the corpse) a few days prior."

Yeah. You might want to be able to show that, say, he was previously involved with a known Russian crime ring, and is now travelling to Moscow and giving talks condemning the US while working for a presidential campaign.

Can't imagine why you might want to investigate whether such a person might be working as a foreign agent.

Also, of note concerning this memo: FISA applications are generally ~50-ish pages long. If we're to believe Nunes, it was nothing but a giant list of "Steele says this..." and "Steele says that", and "Please don't ask us anything about who this steel guy was", and the judge was like, "Sure, no need for that, the word of one person is good enough for a FISA warrant." Actually, no, because even Nunes himself contradicts this narrative when he briefly brings up George Papadopoulos, who was apparently also listed as justification. If we're to take Nunes at face value concerning him ("there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos"), the FBI said to the judge, "Hey, this guy Papadopoloulos is dirty, but has nothing to do with Carter Page, so let us spy on Page" and the judge said "Okay, that sounds logical" and granted approval.

Nunes mentions this in the same paragraph where he brings up his favourite FBI boogeyman, Strzok and - everyone prepare to be shocked - while working to portray him as part of a corrupt deep state conspiracy to elect Trump, doesn't bother to mention that Strzok advocated for and drafted the "Comey Letter" reopening the Clinton investigation, which cost her in polls more than her margin of loss in the key swing states. Aka, their boogeyman was a key figure in electing Trump.

Also, I'm amazed that nobody has yet posted the House Intelligence Committee minority's response [house.gov]. They're still legally prohibited from releasing their memo (is their any way that Nunes could possibly have made this look more like a partisan hack job than that?), but they've stated all that they're legally allowed to:

“The Republican document mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information that few Members of Congress have seen, and which Chairman Nunes himself chose not to review. It fails to provide vital context and information contained in DOJ’s FISA application and renewals, and ignores why and how the FBI initiated, and the Special Counsel has continued, its counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s election interference and links to the Trump campaign. The sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the President. Tellingly, when asked whether the Republican staff who wrote the memo had coordinated its drafting with the White House, the Chairman refused to answer.

“The premise of the Nunes memo is that the FBI and DOJ corruptly sought a FISA warrant on a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, and deliberately misled the court as part of a systematic abuse of the FISA process. As the Minority memo makes clear, none of this is true. The FBI had good reason to be concerned about Carter Page and would have been derelict in its responsibility to protect the country had it not sought a FISA warrant.

“In order to understand the context in which the FBI sought a FISA warrant for Carter Page, it is necessary to understand how the investigation began, what other information the FBI had about Russia’s efforts to interfere with our election, and what the FBI knew about Carter Page prior to making application to the court – including Carter Page’s previous interactions with Russian intelligence operatives. This is set out in the Democratic response which the GOP so far refuses to make public.

“The authors of the GOP memo would like the country to believe that the investigation began with Christopher Steele and the dossier, and if they can just discredit Mr. Steele, they can make the whole investigation go away regardless of the Russians’ interference in our election or the role of the Trump campaign in that interference. This ignores the inconvenient fact that the investigation did not begin with, or arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier, and that the investigation would persist on the basis of wholly independent evidence had Christopher Steele never entered the picture.

“The DOJ appropriately provided the court with a comprehensive explanation of Russia’s election interference, including evidence that Russian agents courted another Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos. As we know from Papadopoulos’ guilty plea, Russian agents disclosed to Papadopoulos their possession of stolen Clinton emails and interest in a relationship with the campaign. In claiming that there is ‘no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos,’ the Majority deliberately misstates the reason why DOJ specifically explained Russia’s role in courting Papadopoulos and the context in which to evaluate Russian approaches to Page.

“The Majority suggests that the FBI failed to alert the court as to Mr. Steele’s potential political motivations or the political motivations of those who hired him, but this is not accurate. The GOP memo also claims that a Yahoo News article was used to corroborate Steele, but this is not at all why the article was referenced. These are but a few of the serious mischaracterizations of the FISA application. There are many more set out in the Democratic response, which we will again be seeking a vo

The Nunes memo revolves around the assertion that Carter Page's collusion with Russia's spy agency should not have been caught by a FISA warrant...

"The “dossier” compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. "

" Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s effort"

"corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial

I think what he's trying to say is that the FISA warrant for surveillance on Carter Page happened before there was ever a Steele dossier. That means there was already probably cause for a warrant before the dossier.

And the FBI exonerated him at the time because there was no evidence he knew that the person he was talking to was a Russian agent.

The FBI doesn't "exonerate" anyone. They either bring evidence to a prosecutor or they say there's not enough evidence to bring charges...yet. In this case, they had a court renew the FISA warrant and kept an eye on Carter Page.

No. If you ware investigated by the FBI and they don't have evidence to bring charges, they do not write you a note saying, "He's exonerated, signed, the FBI".

And in this case, not only didn't they exonerate Carter Page, but they presented further evidence to continue the FISA warrant, which the federal judges (all appointed by a Republican, by the way) looked at and said, "Yep, you keep watching this guy. There's sufficient probably cause."

By the way, here is an unretouched, actual photo of Carter Page so everybody knows who we're talking about.

Which the memo (which was approved for release by a bipartisan committee

You know damned well that it was approved by a party line vote; that most of the committee had never seen the intelligence that Nunes claims to have based it on; and that there's a strongly dissenting minority memo (from Schiff, who has seen the intelligence), arguing that much of this memo is distortions and outright falsehoods, that the Republicans refused to release concurrent with this memo. That's pretty much the pinnacle of partisan hackery - using classified information to put out a hit piece while hiding contradictory evidence behind the barrier of classified information.

How do you figure? AFAIK, there's no law requiring intelligence officials to disclose every detail to a courts about how information was obtained. So unless the information was obtained illegally (fruit of the poisonous tree), I don't see how that could possibly invalidate the warrant. It might certainly be a violation of procedure that is worthy of termination, but that's an entirely separate matter than whether the warrant is legal.

The Democrats on the committee are currently muzzled by the Republicans voting to release only the Nunes memo, but they have been able to specifically comment [house.gov] on a few claims and that was one of them:

... the Majority deliberately misstates the reason why DOJ specifically explained Russia’s role in courting Papadopoulos and the context in which to evaluate Russian approaches to Page.

The Majority suggests that the FBI failed to alert the court as to Mr. Steele’s potential political motivations or the political motivations of those who hired him, but this is not accurate. The GOP memo also claims that a Yahoo News article was used to corroborate Steele, but this is not at all why the article was referenced.

But of course, when you put a legal muzzle on your opponents, you can write whatever congressional fan fiction you want and present it as the truth. The only "stink to high heaven" is coming from Nunes and his enablers.

(Should I even bother to mention that Nunes is supposedly "recused" from the Russia investigation for his previous attempts to coordinate conspiracy theories with the White House (incl. sneaking off to the White House in the middle of the night), or that he was part of the freaking Trump transition team, deep in the middle of the Flynn mess? He'll be lucky if he doesn't end up indicted himself)

If that were true, why would the FBI use the Steele Dossier as justification for the initial FISA application and why would the FBI not tell the FISA courts about the political component of that dossier?

For probably the most stupid human reason of all: It was easy, and they knew that the FISA court would rubber stamp their request regardless.

I mean, if I needed to get something authorized in my building and I could just grab some dodgy report, chop off the bits that would raise eyebrows, and hand it in to get rubber stamped, why would I bother going through the effort of doing a decent job?

We've known that the FISA courts were a travesty for a long time. To my mind, this looks like just as much of an indictment of that process as it does the FBI's conduct. The FISA courts were supposed to be a check on the FBI's use of secret warrants, but as documented here, look how well that worked.

I'd love to see how common this is. While this event is obviously being unearthed for political purposes, I can't imagine that this isn't how a lot of the FISA rulings went over the last 40 years. Instead of focusing on the FBI, the real focus should be on the FISA courts, because they should have a level of rigor that nobody at the FBI would even think about trying to go to them with evidence like this.

Part of the problem is that the FBI didn't corroborate the dossier for the FISA application. Uncorroborated evidence paid for by political party used as justification for spying on political opponents is the problem.

It's one thing to recognize that the dossier was paid for by the DNC. It's quite another to rely on that without corroborating it for the purpose of spying on the DNC opposition. Particularly so when there were many conflicts of interest in the FBI like Strozk and Lisa Page whose loyalty seems m

The Nunes memo revolves around the assertion that Carter Page's collusion with Russia's spy agency should not have been caught by a FISA warrant.

By the time Carter Page was caught committing treason for the Trump campaign, he had already been caught communicating with and offering help to Russian spies in a completely separate spy ring.

In other words, the Trump / Russia collusion is the second time Carter Page has been investigated in connection to Russian spies he was working for.

Interestingly the Russian spies in the first investigation (1 did prison time, 2 fled to Moscow) thought Carter Page was an idiot who craved money. Watch one of his bumbling television appearances where he incriminates himself multiple times while trying to pretend nothing happened. Really quite amazing spectacle, and you have to conclude the Russians are right about this guy... [youtube.com]

The *problem* with this theory of yours is that you are saying the recently released memo is wrong, that the FISA warrants where not based on the dossier from Steel, but other intelligence which was known to be true. The memo is based on the claims that without the dossier there would have been no justification for the FISA warrants.

So Carter Page's relationship with Russians isn't all that material here. Simply knowing and associating with somebody who had something to do with the Russians in the past i

Even if that were true - and given the cherry-picked nature of the information in the memo, I doubt it's the complete story - the Steel dossier was just one more piece of information. It may have been the one that put them over the top (and it may not have been) - but there was plenty of reason to seek the FISA warrant. Page's past connections with Russia, along with his connections with the Trump campaign, along with multiple Russia concerns about that campaign, along with Popadopolis' admitted lies to the FBI about contacts with, wait, Russian agents.

Nunes is claiming (or at least hoping Hannity will make the convincing argument) that it's scandalous to use the Steel memo for anything at all. But that's not how intelligence works. Yes, some of the info you gather may come from dubious sources - and that gets taken into account. For all we know, the Steel dossier convinced the FBI to seek the warrant - but as confirmation of other sourced information they already had. In fact, the FBI has pretty much confirmed this in their arguments against releasing this bit of propaganda. But Nunes is refusing to allow the rest of the context for the warrant to be released - or at least not until Hannity has had the chance to play this out in the court of public opinion.

The ultimate goal is either to give Trump an excuse to fire Rosenstein - and by extension Mueller, or simply to cast enough doubt on the Russia investigation that anything it comes up with will be tainted, and Trump will be able to lie/power his way through the findings - and the House will have an excuse to do nothing about them. In any case, this memo is an act of political propaganda - not intelligence oversight. Who knows (well, maybe Mueller does) - there could be nothing more to the Russian collusion scandal then the obvious fact that the Trump campaign knew Russia was pulling strings for them, and thought that was fine. That's sleazy, but probably not illegal. And Trump probably could've left it at that - had he not tried to fight the investigation at every turn. But what's likely to be found is all manner of financial wrongdoing involving Russians that may well have been illegal. There's something there - or else they wouldn't be trying so hard to suppress it.

Oh. And then there's the little matter of actual direct interference in our election - about which nothing is being done. Slashdotters have been raising red flags for years about weaknesses in the voting systems - and indeed systems that handle our voter roles were broken into. But somehow enough Slashdotters have become 'anti-liberal' enough that running interference for the likes of Donald Trump is more important to them than, oh, the integrity of our democracy. As DJT would say, SAD!

So let me get this straight; We know Christopher Steele an ex-MI6 agent got info from the Russian Kremlin and sold it to FusionGPS, who intern sold it to the DNC who then gave it to the FBI. This sounds the Russians are playing the DNC as the fools they are?

WTF are you smoking? Here is my train of logic. The statement: "the Republicans first paid Fusion to get the info" is a lie because "Republicans dropped their interest and funding after the GOP primaries long before the DNC commissioned the dossier".

I didn't mention anything about Steeles motivation or whatever specious argument you think I made. I only was addressing the lie that "Republicans first paid Fusion to get the info". You need to stop smoking crack old man.

Fusion in 2015 began investigating Trump under a contract with the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website financially supported by GOP megadonor Paul Singer. That assignment ended once Trump was on track to win the nomination. But in April 2016, Fusion was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to keep funding the research. (Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained the firm.)

What I think everybody is missing here is that the only reason we don't have the complete story is because they created a special court so they could keep their investigations secret. And now, we are getting one side of the story, formulated by friends of the administration, and because of the FISA court's sealed records, we are unable to get the other side of the story.

If ever there were absolute proof that secret court proceedings are a fundamental threat to democracy, THIS IS IT RIGHT HERE. We absolutely MUST dissolve the FISA court and do so through a constitutional amendment to make it clear that such shenanigans must never be used again. There is no greater threat to our democracy than public officials who cannot be held accountable by the people, whether those officials are members of the White House, members of the FBI, or anybody else.

He's operating on the principle of "if you can't join 'em, beat 'em". This is nothing less than an attempt to build the case that the FBI needs to be cleansed of anyone who isn't more loyal to Trump than the country, the law, or the constitution.

What you said, plus this: Trump and his cabinet are corrupt as hell, probably being coerced or collaborating with Putin and Russia, have so many skeletons in their closet that they should open a haunted house, and Trump sees the hammer on it's way to falling on him (in the person of Robert Mueller) and is now desperately flailing about in what will be a futile attempt to avoid the consequences, which in the least will amount to being removed from office, and at most will result in criminal charges. This isn't going to be fun-and-games for anyone or for the country it's going to be BAD, BAD, BAD for the country, but allowing someone like Trump to continue would be worse. As is it'll take decades to repair the damage done to our government, and to the reputation of the United States with it's allies and with the rest of the world. Hell, it might destroy this country entirely. This particular political nuke is already on trajectory and can't be stopped; all that's left for us now is to sit and wait to see what happens.

Carter Page was under investigation before GPS Fusion was contracted by the GOP, which was before Clinton contracted them. FISA warrants were issued for the investigation well before the Steele dossier was even conceived.

The memo's so short, its interesting they choose not to reprint it instead of trying to add their spin to it.

From reading the actual memo, it's clear there's nothing in it that reveals anything detrimental to national security. On the contrary, it reveals top FBI officials acting in a way that is clearly not designed to protect US persons rights.

Hopefully this will be the start of a process leading to some much needed reforms of FISA.

If the memo is short enough to reprint it's probably missing 20 pages. These things are usually 30-40 pages long. The idea that a 4 page version suddenly contradicts all the other data suggests deep cherry picking.

Let me clarify. I'm not specifically referring to the investigation but to the hoards of idiots that keep spouting this without any proof what so ever. If they have proof put it on the table or shut up.

By all means let the investigation continue and when it concludes lets see what we have.

Carter Page was under investigation before even the GOP contracted GPS Fusion.

In addition, the investigation was working with George Papadopoulos, who is cooperating with Mueller as part of a plea deal, *before* the Steele dossier came into play -- as noted in The Nunes memo is out. It’s a joke and a sham. [washingtonpost.com],

[Nunes Memo] The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s office for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump.

This is apparently supposed to show that the investigation was opened by a biased FBI agent. But it actually shows that the FBI investigation predated the supposed misuse of the Steele dossier, and it shows that the cause of the investigation was information provided by Papadopoulos, which is what the New York Times reported [nytimes.com]. Remember, this Times report was widely mocked by Trump allies. Yet the memo actually lends that story more credence and, in the process, undercuts the whole alt-narrative that the genesis of the probe was illegitimate.

Because what is says was cherry picked by a Trump loyalist, who excluded a lot of information, as confirmed by many, including Republicans on Senate Intelligence committee who had access to ALL of the information.

FFS, even Paul Ryan is requesting that the Democrat's rebuttal memo be released!

But in addition, I bet that they had additional evidence on Page that they didn't really want to write up in their FISA application. The ties with Russia are apparently so deep on the Friends of Trump side that I'm sure they probably had a few arrows pointed at him from other sources. For all we know, it might have stemmed from intelligence sharing between the NSA and FBI, where the NSA wasn't able to give them the full details, or at least not down to the level of the people investigating people like Page.

Potential political corruption and abuse if the boss says, "Find something on this guy, anything."? Quite possibly. But also possibly, "We have a smoking gun that we can't reveal, lets find another way to get this guy." And that might be totally legitimate due to a spying operation that it would reveal, or a source that it would compromise that could be used to nab even bigger fish.

This isn't exactly normal police work when you're dealing at this level.

I have no opinion about whether the surveillance on Page was appropriate, because it is obvious that the information available is too incomplete to form an intelligent and honest conclusion.

The FBI is not expected to spill all the information it has to FISA. It makes requests and provides what information it deems sufficient to meet the legal standard. If the FISA judges do not agree with the request, the FBI will try again, adding more information. The judges were sufficiently swayed that the FBI did no

So it seems the FBI/DOJ under Obama used smear information bought from Russian intelligence sources by the Clinton Campaign to justify secretly wiretapping and investigating their political rivals during a presidential election. Did someone say Russian Collusion?

You mean the information originally paid for by the conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, funded by a major Republican donor, New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, and abandoned once Trump won the Republican nomination? And that the House Intelligence Committee knows this, but doesn't mention it? That one [nytimes.com]?

The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, first hired the research firm that months later produced for Democrats the salacious dossier describing ties between Donald J. Trump and the Russian government, the website said on Friday.

The Free Beacon, funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer, hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee had begun paying Fusion GPS in April for research that eventually became the basis for the dossier.

The Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee on Friday that it had retained the firm.

And you're also implying information cannot be legitimate and useful if obtained by the opposition and/or potentially biased actors, and/or this fact isn't disclosed during review? Others, apparently, disagree [nytimes.com]:

“Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the D.N.C., Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior D.O.J. and F.B.I. officials,” said the memo, which was written by committee staffers.

That assertion is “potentially problematic,” said David Kris, a FISA expert and former head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division in the first term of the Obama administration.

If the warrant applications did disclose that Mr. Steele’s research was funded by people who were opposed to Mr. Trump’s campaign, even if it did not name the D.N.C. or the Clinton campaign, then the applications “would be fine,” he said, and the author of the memo and those who backed its release are trying to mislead the American people.

This is all political theater by Republican Congressman Nunes, who once worked for the Trump campaign (you know, the people being investigated), to distract people from, and discredit, the Trump/Russia investigation.

You have stated the falsehood being pushed. "The other side is dirty... look over there!!" Nobody in the Clinton campaign met with Russian agents or has deep ties to Russian money laundering. Steele went to the FBI himself (not at anyone's request) because he thought crimes were being committed and just giving the info to the other political campaign was not appropriate. And I think the deep irony of this memo is that, if anything, the FBI didn't pursue this vigorously enough.

"...In actuality, FISA (the court) was given bad information, but worked as expected. For example, in addition to the dossier the FBI cited a newspaper article as corroboration evidence and told the court that Steele did not provide the info for the article. In reality, Steele did, in fact provide the information for the newspaper to print the article, the FBI knew this, and didn't tell the court...."

You are reading the memo at face value. Now, I suppose it's possible there is nothing else to this story th

In actuality, FISA (the court) was given bad information, but worked as expected. For example, in addition to the dossier the FBI cited a newspaper article as corroboration evidence and told the court that Steele did not provide the info for the article. In reality, Steele did, in fact provide the information for the newspaper to print the article, the FBI knew this, and didn't tell the court.

Without getting into wrong doing on the part of Trump and his people and if this does or does not justify removal of Muller, Rosenstine or anyone else. I think this should give us all pause. You are right the court did operate as expected. A secret court that hears only one sided arguments whose decision remain under seal long after they are implemented; surprise surprise issued the warrant the intel community asked for!

Sure even regular courts issue sealed wiretap warrants and similar but the arguments

the president is suppose to fire people if the FBI isn't being handled the way it should be. He's not supposed to engage in off handed pissing matches. This is Gas Lighting to distract from the corruption he and his administration are being investigated for. And not that Russian nonsense either, but actual money laundering, bribes and outright corruption.

I don't give a flying fuck about Hillary. I never voted for her at any level, and don't care for her at all. Her losing the election is not the part that looks like fascism. Trump trying to remove the independence of the FBI and DoJ and install people who are loyal to him above the nation, the law, or the constitution - that's the part that looks like fascism.

Under the U.S. Constitution, neither the FBI nor the DoJ are independent of the President. So, if Trump needs to remove their independence, we ALREADY have fascism and he is undoing it.

Or to put this another way, it sure looks like there are a whole bunch of people in the DoJ and the FBI who put their opinion of who should be President above the results of the election and are seeking to undo the last election by whatever means necessary.

I don't give a flying fuck about Hillary. I never voted for her at any level, and don't care for her at all. Her losing the election is not the part that looks like fascism. Trump trying to remove the independence of the FBI and DoJ and install people who are loyal to him above the nation, the law, or the constitution - that's the part that looks like fascism.

No you don't understand American civics and apparently half of our media does not either. The FBI and DOJ are NOT independent and are not supposed to be independent. They are executive agencies that serve at the pleasure of the president! The president is not above the law; but it is NOT the job of the FBI or the DOJ to investigate or prosecute the President. Arguably it is in fact the job of the DOJ to construct legal theories defending any action the President may take while he is the president.

Congress and the Courts on the other hand are independent! Which is why Congress enjoys subpoena power and has the ability to impeach the president and what the Senate has the ability to try him! Its why the Supreme court has the ability to rule on matters like executive privilege and mediate between the two. Finally its why Congress enjoys protection from arrest by the executive.

Under our Constitution if anyone cared to read or follow it anymore, the FBI has no business investigating the President and the President has no obligation to explain his reasoning or even offer one for firing anyone working at the FBI or DOJ; and exactly no-one has the right to question his motive in doing so; those are explicit powers he has.

If congress things there was crime committed by the executive its THEIR job to investigate. If YOU think there was a crime committed and congress isn't investigating its YOUR job to vote for some new congress critters.

The FBI and DOJ are part of the Executive Branch, but they were created by act of Congress (a very early one in the case of the DOJ) and have responsibilities assigned by Congress. They are not simply supposed to simply obey the President's orders. They are supposed to discharge their duties as assigned by Congress.

The government is not set up as a business, and the President doesn't really have the authority many people seem to think he does.

However by general consent of congress and the executive, the president keeps control of the DOJ at an extreme distance when it comes to independent counsels. Why do you think Clinton didn't just fire Kenneth Star?

Does the FBI agents and administrators swear a oath to protect the Constitution and laws of the US or to obey the President? Lets checkhttps://www2.fbi.gov/publicati... [fbi.gov]

I [name] do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge

The executive doesn't make laws... he is supposed to follow them. Thus, when handling the FBI, the President is supposed to follow the act that congress passed -- the law that brought the FBI into existence.

According to who? Republicans pursued Hillary Clinton with everything and anything they could think of to prevent her from becoming the next President. (and, for whatever reason, *still* wasn't convicted of *anything*) The remainder of your commentary confirms that their attempts achieved their intended results none-the-less. *That* is what Fascism looks like.

Congratulations on being part of the problem.

Enjoy your "freedom" - while it lasts, until they convince you of the next thing they want...

An yet the democrats in congress did everything the could to prevent the release of this memo. Seems to me if it did what you said it did then they would have been fighting to release it a long time ago.

The committed voted on sending the minority memo to the WH along with the majority memo, and to submit them to WH vetting and if passed, release, concurrently.
The minority did move for this to happen in spite of the entire house not having seen it yet (persuant to Committee Rule 14(i), which *allows* for such a thing to happen, but does *not* require it for what the minority then motions for.)
The minority argues that since none of the House has seen any of the underlying evidence supporting either memo, along with all but 2 of the members of the Intelligence Committee, that the opinion of the whole House was irrelevant, and just political drum beating, and the real reason for the majority's demand that the minority memo go through the same process is to delay the release of the minority memo to be able to set the narrative publicly with their memo, which has been described as misleading and reckless.

This is all in the meeting notes, including citations of relevant rules.
In short, you're wrong. You're asserting the existence of a rule that does not exist. What a concept.

A guy like that would never conceal the political origins of the Steele dossier from the FISA court....

Probably because the political origins actually have nothing to do with the probable-cause given to the FISA court, four times. Duh? Obviously the facts they did present to the FISA court judge were compelling enough to issue the warrant for surveillance.

Repedocans are the only ones deluded into thinking the FBI is somehow political. It's not. I know they wish it were so they can lay blame, but sorry, nothing to see here but hot air and wishful thinking.